quirers having substantial cash resources to
pay for acquisitions — coupled with more
readily available bank financing at attractive interest rates. This, along with pent-up
desire and the amount of capital private
equity has had to bring to the table, meant
Burkhardt was optimistic that the industrial distribution sector would continue to
see a lot of activity through 2013.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that in
the past 12 months, nearly 8. 5 percent
of our survey respondents were part of a
merger or acquisition. Adding to this, nearly 16 percent said they were approached,
but that the merger/acquisition did not
take place. Of our respondent group, 44
percent think that more distributors will
consolidate in the coming year — with 46
percent saying the rate of consolidation Figure 2